In MY mind, this is a record of the pre-build, build and (hopefully) life aboard the good ship 'Ellis' (yes I know - she's a boat not a ship!)
For More information about Narrowboat live-aboard hotel experiences, please visit the website: narrowboatellis.com

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Wednesday, 2 November 2016

A "shorting circuit"...

The quick version is the constant "tripping" of lighting circuit 1 is now resolved!

The LONGER version follows:

Having slept on the problem, and then tried tightening up ALL the negatives on the bus-bar ( there was no improvement)... we agreed there was nothing to be done other than call the boat builder - we left it until a little after 9 and decided that as it was such a nice morning, we'd go for a proper "first chug" in the sunshine.

Our planned destination was Fairies Hill - the place we'd originally tried to get a mooring.... We'd never been on a boat in that direction before but knew there were a couple of massive automated locks to contend with - we'd never done an automated one before so were a little apprehensive but the sun was shining so WHAT could go wrong?

you cant see the confused face on Andy as he read , re-read and then read again the instructions...

Eventually, the lock began to empty lol.

Here are a couple of brief, dull and wobbly videos of it:

Neither of us enjoyed the lock actually... maybe we're closet masochists but we much prefer lock-wheeling to pushing buttons.

It WAS a nice day for a chug through familiar (walking) territory

As it happens though, the 2nd lock was out of order and although CRT were in attendance, it would be 30-45 mins until it was back on line so we turned in the approach and headed back home to get on with jobs.

During the chug back I called the boat builder to inform him about the tripping circuit and ask if someone might come out. I was a little disappointed when he said he'd ask Paul next week when he returns from his holiday - it's NOT the end of the world, but I'd hoped he'd send someone else ... given that he knows we're off work this week... hey ho.

ANYWAY - as it happens... for whatever reason, it occurred to me the only thing I'd NOT done was "cut the outdoor light switch wire" (I'd under ordered switches so it'd not been connected up)... BINGO - as soon as the wire was cut, the lights would stay on.

Going outside, to investigate the 'loop' of wire I discovered it wasn't a loop at all (obvious really) but 2 BARE ends that "someone" (well intentioned I've no doubt) had pushed into the hole (thus shorting out) to 'keep them dry'... because I'd never seen any bare wires, it hadn't occurred to me!

Anyway - it's now fine and I've put the builder out of his misery.

When we got back, we decided to try and get some primer on... the sun was still shining so we got a bit slapped on the front... the plan is to get it all into one shade asap but as is the way with boaty plans... people kept coming up and chatting so things got put on hold - and by the time we could start again, it was getting too cold to continue.

We'd planned to continue with it but it was raining yesterday so we ended up starting fitting the radiators to the interior.

I had planned to get them on the walls first and THEN do the piping but decided to do them at the same time and have begun at the end of the run... under the back steps.